A Visitor from the Future
by SybLaTortue
Summary: For a chance to change fate, Sanji went back in time and now meet up with the Strawhats to warn them off a certain place.


**Also written for the OP_FanForAll.**

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Thanks to Nami's careful planning, he'd made it just in time.

The blond man jumped down from a small merchant vessel to the dock on Ouburi Island. The travel from the New World to this little island on the Grand Line had taken him a bit less than a month. It had been a long time without any of his nakama at his side but if he could really change things... He took a long, shaky drag of his cigarette. If that shitty Devil's Fruit user wasn't bullshitting them and the present (future?) could really be changed by meeting up with them in the past, then the last month would have been worth it.

Sanji walked to the other end of the small port to where the Going Merry was docked. He didn't even remember this port. So many things had happened during these last years, so many adventures, that obviously his memory didn't deem it necessary to remember about a small island where they docked, bought some supplies and left as soon as the Log Pose set.

He climbed on board of the Merry and was greeted by a deserted deck. Whoever stayed to guard the ship was probably in the galley or below deck right now. The cook let his hand caress the railing and was almost overcome by a wave of nostalgia. The Thousand Sunny was great but Merry... "It's been a while." he whispered.

His musings were interrupted by the door of the galley opening and Usopp walking out, snack in hands. His attention was still turned to inside the galley. "Thank you Sanji, I'll be sure to get you an extra bottle of tabasco sauce!"

The Sanji on deck stiffened. Now would be the weird part. Usopp turned around and saw him. "Oh, hi Sanji!" he greeted, stepping down the stairs to the deck. He paused.

Stared.

Glanced back toward the galley door, then back at Sanji.

Stared some more and the snack was dropped, making Sanji frown.

"**AAAAAHH!!!**"

A crash and a curse from the galley and a blond head appeared in the doorway. "WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU YELLING SHITTY LONG-... Long... WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!"

Sanji smirked. He had expected he would react like that. Usopp was looking back and forth at the two cooks. He opened his mouth, about to say something but Sanji cut him off. "No, I'm not that shitty okama."

"Then h-h-how is that p-possible?" he squeaked.

"I'm from the future an-!" Sanji barely had time to block the foot aimed at his head with his own. "Oi! Let me explain!"

"Like hell! That's a shitty explanation even by Usopp standards!"

"I can prove it." The second Sanji lowered his leg and leaned in to whisper something in Sanji's ear, then stepped back, satisfied with the dumbfounded look on his face. Usopp could only wonder what was said.

Sanji took his cigarette from his mouth and offered it to the shocked Sanji, who took it gratefully.

After a moment of silence, both cooks turned to the liar. "Oi, Usopp, stop staring and go get the others." And that the two said it exactly at the same time was scary enough for the sniper to sprint towards the town in search of the others.

Sanji flicked the spent butt of his cigarette overboard and looked at 'himself'. He did look slightly older he supposed. "So, is there a good reason why I decided to go back in the past?"

"Yeah... I can't go into details though."

The sadness in his voice made Sanji shiver with a feeling of dread. "Something bad will happen." Not a question.

"Hm."

***

The rest of the crew came back and the opinions on a second Sanji were not unanimous.

Nami wasn't so pleased and for a moment feared to be doted upon twice as much as usual but was surprised to discover that Sanji from the future had a little more restraint. Which earned him a kick in the head from his past self for not showing enough devotion and omitting the '-san'.

The Marimo obviously found that very amusing until the two Sanjis' ganged up on him.

Some property damage later, Zoro retired to the aft deck for a nap, not wanting to deal with two idiot Love-Cooks.

The older Sanji watched the swordsman walk away. He was the reason why he had insisted to be the one who was sent back after all.

A tap on his shoulder. "So, Sanji-kun, how did you got here? And why? Are you staying long?"

"Ah my dearest Nami, I can only tell the why to the captain but I can answer your other questions~" The whole explanation didn't take very long since Sanji couldn't disclose many elements.

The time travel was a courtesy of a Devil's Fruit user that the Strawhats had met and saved later in their adventures. He had only been sent back in time and not in space, one of the limits of his power, hence why he had to travel all the way to this island to meet up with them.

Usopp and Chopper started at that point to ask all the questions that Sanji couldn't answer from "What other islands will the Strawhats visit?" to "What other enemies will we face?" to "Will we get a musician soon?" and even Luffy seemed interested by that last one. Sanji had to get help from his past self to convince them that he couldn't answer or else he might fuck up the future more than it was already.

That sobered them.

Except Luffy, who was still the most excited about the whole thing anyway, probably thinking that now that he had two cooks, he could get twice as much food. Moron.

"As for how long I'm staying... The man who sent me back said that I'll just disappear not too long after I talk with Luffy. A few hours at most, since in the future, whether it'll be different or not, I'll have no need to go back or we'll just know it was useless to try to change fate."

A long silence followed.

"So you're a Mysterious Sanji."

The two cooks' eye twitched as Luffy was smacked by an annoyed navigator.

Robin nodded sagely. "Should we leave you and Captain-san alone now, Cook-san?"

"Ah, yes, that would be best. Thank you Robin." Sanji turned to the galley. "Come on Luffy, I'll make you something while we talk."

"Yosh!"

"Oi, oi! You're gonna leave even yourself in ignorance?" said the younger Sanji.

"Absolutely! You'll thank yourself later." The galley door closed behind them.

"Shitty Cook!"

A pause. Did he just use _that_ insult on himself?

Suppressed laughter around him confirmed the fact. Oh hell.

***

Sitting on the galley table, feet idly kicking the air, Luffy waited for his cook to talk (and to finish preparing him a snack).

Sanji was dicing some choice pieces of meat, taking a moment to indulge in cooking in the small kitchen.

"Luffy... You know you're going to have a lot more of formidable adventures in the future, right?"

"Of course Sanji! I didn't need you to tell me that!" He laughed. A sound that Sanji had missed.

"There's one of those adventure you'll have to avoid, that's what I'm here to tell you."

"But Saaaannjiiii, I don't want to miss out on anything!" He whined.

"If you don't, someone of your crew will die." Sanji continued with a thick voice and shit, he was still not over it and didn't want to be anyway, as long as there was hope.

Luffy's eyes widened. He stood and walked up next to the cook who was still working on his snack, albeit more slowly. "Sanji. We all know that being pirates is dangerous... Besides," he smiled "now that you told me that, we can be more careful about not dying later!"

How he wished he could believe such simple logic. "That won't be enough, Luffy. We really did think this through before I got sent here and the only way to avoid Zoro's death is to avoid that place entirely."

Sanji knew his captain's heart skip a beat at the mention of his swordsman.

"Zoro..." Luffy whispered then looked up with sadness and determination in his eyes and Sanji could guess what he was going to say. "If he was fighting Miha-"

"He wasn't fighting Mihawk. Or any other shitty swordsman for that matter. He didn't die for his dream. You think I'd travel into the fucking past if that was the case?! He didn't..." The cook took a long breath, trying to calm himself. "He didn't die in a fight or sacrificing himself for a cause or a nakama... It wasn't an honorable death. At all. He'd never accept it."

Silence fell on the two. Luffy sat at the table, apparently deep in thought, while Sanji resumed preparing his snack.

Minutes passed and a plate filled with an impressive meal was placed in front of the captain. Not one to let his mood affect his appetite, he inhaled almost all of it in a few seconds and then paused.

"Something wrong, Luffy?"

"Your cooking improved a lot, Sanji!" he grinned and the mood lifted a little.

"Hai, thank you Capt'n."

The rest of the snack disappeared quickly and Luffy rubbed his stomach with satisfaction. "That was gooooooood~!" He clapped his feet together. "Sooooo now will you tell me how to keep my swordsman?"

Sanji stayed silent for a moment and started to gather the dirty dishes. Luffy frowned, wondering if the cook heard him.

"Sanji?"

"At some point in your adventures you'll have a choice to make... and it's funny because when we didn't know what lay ahead, it wasn't even a choice." He smiled at what was a happy memory for him. "You'll have the choice between following the path given by the Log Pose or following a clue that will lead you to All Blue. You must not go to All Blue. At all co-"

"SANJI!" Luffy jumped on his feet, eyes alight and furious. "You can't say that! It's your dream! You can't give it up like that!"

The cook turned his attention to the floor, unable to look his captain in the eyes. "I can and I will. If it's for the Marimo, I will with no second thoughts. But the other me on this ship doesn't know that yet and that's why I'm asking you, Luffy."

The rubber captain stepped forward, peering up at his sad cook. He placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "I understand, Sanji."

"You do? I-I mean, thanks Capt'n." A weak smile. "I'll probably kick you a little when you decide to keep clear of All Blue but you'll just have to repeat to me what I told you today and I'll be-"

"I haven't made a decision yet."

"Oh."

"But don't worry, Sanji, I'll take the right one."

"Tch, I can only hope."

"You gonna disappear now?"

"What? Oh that... Yeah I s'pose. I don't have much time left and I still have a couple of things to do too. Must properly say goodbye to the ladies you know~" And he was out of the galley.

***

He found Nami and Robin on the foredeck, where they were discussing quietly. Probably about him, he thought, and couldn't help feeling a little thrilled inside.

"Ah my beautiful ladies, there you are~!"

"Oh it's you, Sanji-kun. Hum... You're the one from the future, right?" Nami asked.

"That's right. Sorry to be the cause of such confusion, I won't be here long, I promise. I just needed to give you two this before leaving." He reached inside his jacket and pulled out an envelope with the names 'Nami' and 'Robin' on it. He handed it to Robin and both women looked at it curiously.

"Can we open it, Cook-san?"

"Not yet. Your older selves believe they can trust you enough to not succumb to curiosity and open it only when the time is right."

The two women looked at each other, then back at Sanji and nodded in acceptance.

The blond man grinned. "What it contains is very precious, for all of us. I know you'll keep it safe."

Nami's eyes took on an excited light at the word 'precious', no doubt expecting a treasure map. She wasn't so far from the truth. All the coordinates necessary to map All Blue, if they indeed avoided this ocean in the future, for him it would be the undeniable proof it exists, for her one more piece to her dream. And for Robin, the envelope contained a transcription of a Poneglyph they came across on a small island in the middle of the mythical ocean.

"Now if you'll excuse me, Nami, Robin..." He lightly kissed each of their hands. "There's one more person I need to see."

The girls said their goodbyes to the second cook and saw him stride swiftly toward the aft deck.

***

The sun was close to setting and Sanji was leaning against the galley wall, a mostly spent cigarette dangling from his lips. He was observing Zoro who was still napping against the railing and that was fine with the cook. He'd have liked to talk with him but being so far in the past, Marimo would have been suspicious as hell. He wasn't sure he could have hid his feelings well enough anyway.

Sanji was so far in his thoughts that he didn't see the foot coming at him and hitting him square in the stomach. Hard.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!"

"YOU LET LUFFY ALONE IN THE KITCHEN IDIOT! I can't believe I could be so careless!"

The older Sanji slowly straightened up, clutching his now sore abdomen, snickering. "Ah, sorry about that."

"That's all I have to say to myself?!"

He pondered that for a moment. "Hm... Oh there were some new recipes..." He dug into his pants' pockets and pulled out a few small crumpled papers and handed them to his other self. "Here, Zoro will particularly like that one with the swordfish..."

A blink.

Eyes widened at the realisation of what he'd just said.

"Why would I fucking care for a good recipe for the Seaweed-Head?!" Fortunately his younger self had likely missed the implications, for now anyway.

"N-no reason."

"Tch. Why are you here anyway? S'not like a snoring marimo holds any interest to me, right?"

"Ah... Hum..." Time for a change of topic. "Hey, I might want to make some reserves of my favorite brand of smokes before the New World, they get so fucking hard to find later on..."

"What the hell?! You should tell me instead how to not become such an idiot!"

An interesting exchange of kicks and cooking-themed insults followed but was interrupted before any real damage was done by a groggy but amused voice.

"Oi, you two fighting over me?" The swordsman could only smirk at the positively murderous look in the eye of the Sanji on the left. The slight blush on the Sanji on the right though... Unexpected. In any case he had no time to dwell on it because left-Sanji decided that now that his favorite target was awake, he didn't need to kick himself anymore.

"No one asked you, Shitty-Marimo!" His kick was blocked easily by the swordsman.

Zoro stood slowly, was about to retort with the usual but something else caught his attention. Rather, the absence of something. "Uh? Where's the Love-Cook?"

"I'm right the-... wait." Sanji looked around them, failing to locate his other self. "Shit! I disappeared!"

"Nope, you're there."

"Not me! The other me! Aaargh you're pissing me off!" The irate cook stalked away, mumbling curses.

The green-haired man smiled to himself. The cook had been blind but Zoro didn't miss the clues from the other cook. He had something to look forward to.

End

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**At first I thought writing a sequel would be possible, eventually... But I wrote myself in a dead end with Zoro's mysterious death, so this story is most likely as complete as it'll ever be.**


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